Els van Riel: Moments and movements, light and perception

Els van Riel lives and works in Brussels, Belgium. Her work explores the basic elements of cinema; time and light. She has created fragile forms of aesthetic pleasure, and, bypassing any symbolism and narrativism, makes the projector a central player in all her work. The mechanical image source becomes actively present as if it were a living object. We are delighted that she will be present to introduce her films.

Elliptic
Belgia 2025
16mm
30min

A filmwork that considers an image as reflecting light. The picture frame is a circle, a delicately slow focus shift carries movement along the cone of the visual field to a certain depth, and back again.

Optical movement deepens the image, manipulates it, determines the action, sets the rhythm and captures the surprises. Composer Marie-Cécile Reber highlights a dialogue between image and sound; how daylight itself, as wave particles, might sound and become audible in its transitions.

Fugue, a light’s travelogue
Belgia 2017
16mm
27min

van Riel constructs a new history on light as a phenomenon of perception and as an energy form. Here illustrations of Muslim astronomer Alhancen, scientist Thomas Young, Medeleyev, Max Plank, and Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin are seen fused with diverse icons. A story of light from its reverse; the phantasmagoric effect of shadows, light games and the ghosts that surge from the darkness.